“ APRIL 12,1980, LIBERIA’S WORST DAY IN HISTORY” : A REJOINER TO AUGUSTINE KOLLIE
By Bai Mayson Gbala
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA - Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Introduction
In his denial/rejection of the event of April 12, 1980, Mr. Augustine Kollie writes that “the 1980 coup had no purpose. It was borne out of falsehood . . .”
On the contrary, we hold that the abiding quest for human dignity, respect, freedom and justice throughout history and the continuing, human desire to perfect the democratic process, particularly in this case of the overwhelming majority of the population of our nation, Liberia, denial/rejection of the righteous validity and significance of the events of April 12, 1980, ignores the critical facts of human history and, therefore, is woefully unreasonable and without foundation, though mournfully regrettable in terms of the loss of precious, human lives;
That throughout history, the Desire to secure, protect and maintain human dignity (respect for the human person), freedom and justice – a desire epitomized by the founding of these United States of America in 1776; the bloody French Revolution of 1789; the very founding of the Republic of Liberia in 1822; the (deadly Czarist) Russian Revolution of 1905 in which millions, including the Czars, were killed; and the Russian (Bolshevik) Revolution of October, 1917, during which Vladimir Lenin died in exile in Switzerland – testify passionately, reasonably and convincingly to the righteous validity and significance of April 12, 1980, including several, modern coup d’etats and the prevailing Pro-Democracy, world movement;
And finally that the 163-year, turbulent history of the founding and governance our country, Liberia, is particularly relevant for an insight into, analysis, understanding and interpretation of the issues leading up to and appreciation of the events of April 12, 1980. It is in this respect that we find Mr. Augustine Kollie’s “analysis” and concluding denial/rejection are miserably lacking, in terms of the critical lessons of history.
Significantly, in 1986, while engaged in a campaign for election as Secretary-General for the National Democratic Party of Liberia (NDPL), we observed that although the April 12, 1980 event was a national tragedy because it resulted in the loss of many lives and, thus, brought pain and sorrow upon our nation and people, it also awakened our national social, economic and political consciousness; more importantly, the tragedy brought out and disclosed new and exciting horizons of Leadership Challenges for Change –
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changes in our conceptions of a Nation-State in the context of the developing, democratic worldview, worldwide.
18 Years of Public Service & Experience In Government
Born and raised in rural, southeastern Liberia (Menyea Town, Kanneh Clan, Tchien Chiefdom, Grand Gedeh County) and privileged to serve for 18 years in government as an advisor on policy development/formulation/prescription at the presidential level, this rural background and years of experience in government provided the unique opportunity for me to observe and experienced the socio-economic and political dynamics of our Liberian political system. On the basis of the merit of this position, I participated, as a presenter, at Conference 2024 on the future of Liberia held at the Unity Conference Center, Virginia, Liberia, in July 1998. Sponsored by the Charles Taylor Government, the conference brought together officials of government, members of the diplomatic corps; foreign and Liberian business men and women; scholars; political, civic and religious leaders to reflect upon, analyze and interpret Liberia’s past socio-political and economic history as a frame reference to diagnose, prescribe and recommend needed reforms for social, economic and political re-structure/re-organization of the nation’s future, political enterprise.
Understanding & Appreciating April 12, 1980
As a presenter, the conference afforded me the opportunity to navigate our sordid, past history, express my views fully, clearly and openly at this highest level, with recommendations for the future.
My presentation, the Paper entitled Decentralization of Political & Administrative Power In Liberia was based, also, on the backdrop of the fifteen-year, mind-boggling, ethnic/tribally-driven, and deeply-divisive civil conflict that exposed to the world, in a spine-chilling, graphic and dramatic manner, the most extreme form of envy, jealousy, prejudice, fear, antagonism and hatred apparently intrinsic in our Liberian socio-political nature. These conditions partly explain the magnitude of the mindless atrocities – plunder, destruction, population displacement and hundreds of thousands of refugees, brutality, human suffering and death – committed against unarmed, innocent men, women and children, and the profound ethnic/tribal cleavages created. Hereunder, we draw upon and present the crucial, critical facts of the history of our past and present, from my conference presentation:
Founding of the Liberian Nation
Traditional oral and written, contemporary history teaches us that thousands of black Africans, ancestors of the sixteen tribes that now inhabit Liberia, migrated south of the Sahara Desert during late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries in search of political freedom, fertile land and water for settlement, farming and forest for hunting and timber.
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In their journey south, these nomadic tribesmen/women paused temporarily in and passed through the African nations now known as Mali, Senegal, La Guinea, Burkina Faso and La Cote d’Ivoire. The settled finally in various regions of Liberia which later became tribal nations-states and kingdoms under the rule of tribal chiefs/kings.
The second decade of the nineteenth century saw the immigration of yet another group of black Africans, this time freed slaves from the United States of America. With the settlement of the freed, black Americans, the formation of Liberia as a Republic and declaration of political independence twenty years later in 1847, several other chiefdom/kingdom-states were incorporated into the new Republic.
The Liberian State, as much as could be traversed by road or other means of communication at that time, was demarcated into administrative and political subdivisions of five counties – Grand Cape Mount, Montserrado, Grand Bassa, Sinoe, and Maryland – located along the 350-mile, western Atlantic Sea Coast from Sierra Leone on the North to La Cote d’Ivoire on the South, and extended forty miles inland; the counties were placed under the administration of Superintendents. From the forty-mile limit inland, the hinterland of Liberia was divided into districts and placed under the administration of District Commissioners; the commissioners and superintendents were recruited from the settler-communities of the coastal counties and appointed by the settler-president of the Republic.
Years later, in response to rising expectations, an unusual phenomenon of political consciousness and agitation for change from what was considered a repressive condition of unjust rule, the Liberian Hinterland of districts was, again, demarcated into three provinces – Eastern, Central and Western. Into each of the provinces was apportioned a number of administrative districts; each district, as before, remained under the administration of a District Commissioner who now reported to a newly-established and appointed Provisional Commissioner who, in turn, reported to the President. These officials, as usual, were recruited from the settler-communities in the coastal counties and appointed by the settler-president.
This new approach facilitated a temporal easing of discontent and the unusual, rising expectations of the citizens for some time. For, about twenty years later in 1964, Dr. William V. S. Tubman, then President of Liberia, was forced to come to grips with the developed and developing socio-political realities of the day. In persistent calls and demonstrations for “integration” and “unity”, then code words for democratic governance, recognition of and respect for the rights of indigenous Liberians, rural citizens demanded and the President (Tubman) responded by abolishing the three provinces and created, instead, four new counties (in 1964) – Grand Gedeh, Nimba, Bong and Lofa. With the creation of the new counties came the inevitable Senate and House Represenataions, a demand that had been persistently denied in the past.
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Social, Political & Economic Conditions
The social, political & Economic history of Liberia’s indigenous peoples, an estimated 97% of the nation’s population, had been painfully characterized by what the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (Democrat of New York) described as “benign neglect”. In the Liberian context, this condition was willful, socio-political marginalization, suppression and oppression with planned, systematic denial of civil, human and political rights of indigenous citizens, despite the guarantees granted by the nation’s Constitution of 1847. Indeed, the systematic abuse of socio-political and economic power meted out against their brothers and fellow citizens of rural Liberia by our founding fathers was painfully implemented and meticulously perfected by and through the instruments of “traditional leaders” – powerful tribal chiefs, clan headmen/women, the local military detachments, district and chiefdom messengers – local agents of political/administrative power.
This system of abuse included forced and unpaid labor practices such as recruitment for work in the construction of official, government compounds, residences for district commissioners, revenue agents and military barracks. Indigenous citizens were forcibly taken from towns and villages and used as “porters” or carriers to transport government officials in hammocks and luggage carried on heads from town to town or district to district, without the right of free choice and compensation. Moreover, thousands of rural, indigenous citizens were also forcibly recruited from towns and villages and contracted, without their knowledge and consent, to Spanish cocoa & coffee plantations owners on the Island of Fernando Po (present day Equatorial Guinea in Southwest Africa) by the King and other Administrations, to work without compensation under severe conditions of servitude.
Although the Liberian Nation-State was founded and declared independent with a liberal, democratic constitution adopted on July 26, 1847, our founding fathers refused to recognize and integrate 97% of the nation’s population with their compatriots as full-fledged citizens and equal partners. The democratic principle of “checks and balances” as provided by the constitution soon degenerated into decision-making by a select few of the founding fathers, dominated by a powerful president who became supreme with unquestioned, effective control of the national legislature and judiciary. Thus, the constitutional doctrine of “equal powers” of the three branches of government and “separation of (their) powers” was and had been reduced to an ineffective and meaningless, legal maxim. These conditions prompted a Liberian scholar to observe that the highly “. . . centralized structure of the Liberian government and related institutional inadequacies . . . weakened local government”.
Additionally, the county designation, which formed and still is the basis for legislative apportionment and representation of the political/administrative subdivisions in parliament, was not accorded rural Liberia ( home of the majority, indigenous citizens) until 1964, while the settler communities, homes of the founding fathers and their
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descendents, were given this important, political privilege. In this way, the founding fathers and their descendents dominated the socio-economic and political landscape of Liberia up to the military “regime change” of April 12, 1980.
Put differently, the indigenous citizens paid taxes and satisfied all other obligations of citizenship to “their” government that refused them recognition as full-fledged citizens, legislative representation and equal participation in national affairs affecting their interest and destiny for some 117 of the 150 years of our existence as Nation!!!
Therefore, the events of April 12, 1980 were necessary, righteously valid, significant and consistent with enduring, human history for positive, socio-political change.
Conclusion
An indigenous, politically-liberal citizen, I have long reflected upon our troubling, national history of needless, destructive envy, fear, jealousy, rivalry, antagonism and hatred; all fueled, motivated and driven by the so-called ethnic/tribal nationalism (Country-, Congo- & Americo-Liberianism), a divisive, frivolous concept that is no loner valid in the 21st century Liberia of today. This condition has brought us and our nation face-to-face with near-total collapse!! Unless we build bridges of unity, understanding, mutual respect and cooperation across ethnic/tribal divides, and unless we face today’s critical challenges with reason, commitment and resolve for positive, socio-political change, we stand to lose, ethnic/tribal origin and nationalism notwithstanding!!
This situation should not and need not arise because our country is a small nation of less than 4 million people; it is endowed with relatively more than its share of natural and human resources – a reservoir of trained and experienced professionals and trainable professionals: young, energetic, idealistic and patriotic; rich soil, abundant rain fall, forest with lush greenery, daily sunlight and energy. All of these are suitable for tropical agriculture. Organized and efficiently managed, agriculture (Liberia’s traditional economic activity) and industrial development should, will and must provide and satisfy the needs for all Liberians.
Indeed, it is necessary that we move forward, benefit from the lessons of our past, turbulent history.
The Origins of the Conflict within the Grand Gedeh Association and the Struggle to Finding a Workable Solution
By Edmund Zar-Zar Bargblor
The migration of Liberian refugees into the United States, since the start of the Liberian civil war, December 24, 1989, compelled community-based nonprofits organizations to take upon themselves to provide social and economic safety-net for their fellow tribesmen. Liberian county associations to a greater degree, continue to help newcomers to adjust to their new social and political environment and, in some cases, preserve their cultural identities. Annual conventions help to cement their cultural bonds and commonalities, and to be abreast with social-political and economic developments at home in Liberia.
The Origins of Conflict
But, coming together and fostering democratic elections at times produces tensions among community members whose perception of democracy seems to be limited to a superficial expression. The last presidential elections saw the interjection of past unsettled animosities.
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Some sentiments were re-echoed in an article published on the Liberian Forum written by Mr. Samson B. Toe, in which he was critical of the people from Tuzon. It seems that some individuals from the Toe Town area, Gbarzon District, hold this point of view as reflected in Mr. Toe’s article. . Unfortunately, this point of view has created feelings of hatred among certain elements within the Grand Gedeh Association as reflected in the last presidential election. As the result of this hatred for people from Tuzon as reflected in Mr. Toe’s article and the desire of self-styled politicians to have Mr. Glay removed, the whole association has become engulfed in a conflict that has nothing to do with the goals and objectives of the Grand Gedeh Association. This hatred for Mr. Glay is the underline cause for the alleged election fraud and the subsequent litigation process that ensued. The execution of Co-chairman Thomas Weh Syen, Henry Duo, , Harry Johnson and the death of young Nelson Toe was a tragedy. But, what this has to do with Mr. Henry Glay who was just a little boy at the time? Why implicate him in this unfortunate episode, he was never a member of the PRC government. This is unfair on the part of some people from the Gbarzon District. The resurfacing of the death of Nelson Toe every time during the Grand Gedeh Association’s presidential election is a dangerous thing and this is unfair to the people of Grand Gedeh Association who are endeavoring to put the events of the civil war behind them. Those that directed the execution of Nelson are all dead; it is illogical to include Mr. Henry Glay’s name and the inhabitants of Tuzon in this episode. Henry Glay is not Samuel K. Doe.
II.. On the other hand, there are others who perceived their presence within the Grand Gedeh Association as an opportunity to advance their political image on the national scene in Liberia. These individuals dislike Mr. Glay because he refused to accommodate their quest to use the Grand Gedeh Association as leverage to fostering their political ambitions and aspirations. These individuals only intention is to use who ever in power irrespective of sections, to achieve their political objectives.
III.. Lastly, there are others who have no interest in political power, be it Mr. Glay a Gborho or not, this third group is only interested in stealing the limited funds that the association has accumulated. Over the years in the association, thousands upon thousands of dollars have been taken by individuals in leadership positions and nothing has been done to persecute them.
These three competing forces formed an alliance during the last presidential election. This objective of the alliance was to remove or unseat Mr. Glay from power at all cost as reflected in the composition of the election Commission.
Composition of the election Commission:
Now let us analyze the composition of the election commission, in order to comprehend the motive for the alleged fraud by the perpetrators, and their unheeding determination to prevent Grand Gedeans in Rochester from casting their ballots… they have made up their minds to remove Mr. Glay from office, irrespective of the outcome of the election.
1. Mrs. Annie Barlee…chair of the election commission. It is alleged that she is a closed friend to Mrs. Martha Kannah, and cousin to the removed former chairman of the board, Mr. Steve Boley. Her husband Mr. Barlee, is uncle to the vice presidential candidate, Isaac Yonly.
2.Mr. McArthur Padea, wife ran as a vice presidential candidate with Mr. Pay Dennis and was defeated by Mr. Henry Glay during the last presidential election that took place in Demos, Iowa. He is also an in-law to Martha Kannah.
3. Mr. Moses Zeyan, a Gbarzon man who it is alleged hits Mr. Glay, because he is a Gborho.
4.Mr. George Scott or. Suekay Sharrow, he is cousin to the late Nelson Toe, also a Gbarzon who allegedly dislike Mr. Glay because he is Gborho.
Role of Board in the conflict:
The board failed to be a natural arbitrator as envisioned by the founding fathers of the association. The members of the board and its chairman undermined their credibility by taking sides with the election commissions and the camp of Mrs. Martha Kannah. The board should have endeavored to study the protest that was issued by the Glay’s camp immediately after the election, prior to sanctioning the results of the election. The present board from all indication lacks credibility and should be dissolved.
A Comparative Analogy:
I would like for you to contemplate on the story by Dr. Theodore Edlich, pertinent to the need for community unity.
“Once upon a time there was a community that had many different people who lived together in harmony. The members of the community were very different. Yet each had a place, the resources of every person were considered valuable and utilized, and all had the resources necessary to sustain themselves in good and poor health. There was a real palpable connection each resident with the other and a sense of belonging with the community as a whole.
Then one day a great fog came that not only clouded the people’s vision, but fogged their minds as well so that everyone felt alone and isolated. While the fog eventually cleared from their eyes it never left their minds. What once perceived as a community (literally, a unity of people with each other) was now seen as a mere aggregate of individuals. Each was an island to himself/herself.
Each person, detached from the strength and security of their ties to each other, began to seek security within themselves through a desperate search for money, material ownership, and power. Each sought the support of persons most like themselves in frantic grab for what seemed limited resources. As a consequence, one group began to disparage the motives and abilities of other competing groups and the rights of others to what had been their fair share. As time went on, those who gained advantages gained greater advantages and those who lost advantages lost even those which they have had.
Soon the community was divided between those who had and those who had not. While the community of haves held out the propaganda that all could achieve and that each person had an opportunity to succeed, they also institutionalized a system of inequality in education, opportunity, and resources. Great fear and anger replaced the good feelings, generosity, and oneness that once had filled their hearts. The have-nots grew angrier and angrier at the injustice. The haves feared that what they had acquired would be stolen from them.
As strife grew, a few people longed for the sense of community that had once united the people and contributed to the prosperity of all its members. They decided that the best way to recreate that was to create a model in which members of the different factions met together and planned for rebuilding that sense of community and redressing the ills that had taken place; a model that would help people act like a family.”
Possible Resolution of the Conflict: Recommendations….
1.New election should be called at a time suitable to Mr. Henry Glay and Mrs. Martha Kannah.
2.That the date and place be agreed upon during the scheduled convention this May, 2010.
3.That Mr. Henry Glay remains president, since he is the incumbent, during whose administration the conflict took place.
4.That a natural board be elected at the national convention, equally representing the two camps. The board will oversee the new election. The Glay administration will appoint three individuals and the Martha Kannah camp will also appoint three individuals. An elder will be elected during the ensuing convention to chair the board. The constitution of the association should be suspended at this time.
5.Upon the election of the new administration, a committee should be appointed at the National Conference to revise the constitution for the institution of an amendment that will call for the election of the national board of directors every three years during the National Conference of the Grand Gedeh Association and not by individual chapters. Due to the complicities of our time, any one aspiring for the board should be a college graduate. And any one seeking to be president or vice president should also be a college graduate.
6.At the National Conference, a resolution should be developed in which all Grand Gedeans should be called upon to lay the negative attributes of past political events in Liberia to rest. In this endeavor the President of Gborho Ahmuyan and the President of Gbarzon District should have a cow feast at which time traditional sacrifices will be made to the spirits of their fore fathers to ask for their forgiveness. The Gborho and the Gbarzon people are Dooe-dees. This bond that was created by their fore fathers is sacrosanct and should be revered. . It is now time to forgive each other and move on.
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Conclusion:
The present hulling and pulling is not in the best interest of all Grand Gedeans. This only demonstrates that Grand Gedeans are incapable to handle their own affairs. Liberians are watching carefully to see if Gedeans have the fortitude to resolve differences as a people. And this resolution will also demonstrate to the Liberian people, that Grand Gedeans have the political will and maturity to once again be entrusted with political power in Liberia. If Grand Gedeans can not forgive each other, how can they forgive other Liberians who have transgressed against them in the past?
A Wiseman man once said: “Only fools allowed their differences to destroy them.” Grand Gedeans, this is your challenge, this must be your determination. All Grand Gedeans should endeavor to remove the fog of hatred from their vision, in order to comprehend the social –economic and political complexities of the Liberian nation.
About the author:
Edmund Zar-Zar Bargblor is an Educator within the Providence School Department, Providence, Rhode Island. He is a graduate of Cuttington University College, Liberia, Howard University, Washington, D.C, and Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel. Mr. Bargblor is former Chairman, Board of Directors .Grand Gedeh Association, and grandson of Chief Bargblor of the Gborho Chiefdom, Grand Gedeh County. Presently, he is President of the African Catholic Community of Rhode Island. He can be contacted at: Zbargblor@aol.com
Liberia—Random Thoughts on Africa, the PRC, and the crises within the Grand Gedeh Association.
Dr. Nyonbeor A. Boley, Sr.
Thirty years ago this month, a great Grand Gedean whose sober memory we shared seized political power backed by revolt of the people. This military takeover, headed by MSgt. Samuel K. Doe set the stage for change in the political history of Liberia. But the most important question is what went wrong?Did the Doe -led “revolution” amount to any meaningful political change in Liberia? If not, why not? Let’s take a mental flight at history.
Discussion: The history of the world is a chronicle of oppression. The true measure of man is the degree of his success in meeting the challenge posed by this oppression. Man, therefore, is born oppressed, his life is a struggle and his fulfillment freedom. Of all peoples the most oppressed is the black man, his true measure as man is mirrored only by the degree of his success in meeting the challenge posed by imperialism. The recent story of Liberia is an account of the heroic efforts by a Krahn man to meet the challenge of neocolonialism in all its forms.
Historical precedents, while reaffirming the unchanging pattern of oppression, continually indicate that revolution is the only means left to a people for breaking off the shackles of neocolonial oppression. Since oppression is maintained by force, it is only possible to remove that force by a counter force. Because to maintain neocolonialism is always material- the products of sophisticated network of industry and technology- because this force is often denied the oppressed, force becomes the major weapon in the revolutionary arsenal of an oppressed people. It is this force, which is moral, that enables a total mobilization of the oppressed people to combat the oppressor. This force-- the revolution within—so changes the oppressed people that almost overnight the stigmatized, lazy, cowardly, primitive people, previously without initiative, without stamina, at once becomes hard-working, courageous, ingenious, persistent, modern. The metamorphosis is so complete, the result so unlike the original that the sponsored neocolonialist finds himself fighting the unknown enemy he made no plan to meet. The next day, a new leader with different name and accent takes over power. To the neocolonialists- family members of those who had ruled Liberia for over 133 years- this was a dream that needed to end at daybreak. And it surely did!!!
Hence, revolution for an oppressed people is not a series of acts of violence, which in themselves are often revolutionary, but an indeterminate sequence of social changes punctuated and supported by various acts of violence. The complexities, the varied aspects, the full ramifications of neocolonialist oppression are such that they at once make the struggle for freedom total and absolute. This demands of the oppressed first an identification, then a rejection of everything colonial and neocolonial, finally a determination, lest it should ever recur, totally to eliminate all vestiges of neocolonialist oppression wherever it is found. But given the political history of Liberia, our leaders in the fight for true freedom and economic-political independence very soon realized the corrupt possibilities of power, the temptation of which proved too strong for their weak frames. By 1984, some members of the old order were back, side by side with M.Sgt Doe, running things, with very little changes.
But oppressed peoples today have variedly become aware of the unnatural limitations imposed on progress by a neocolonial status- as a people we have partially identified and in identifying partially rejected its various aspects. It is this that has made possible a new form of colonialism in which oppression is no longer by direct application but by distant impulses and self-imposed by reflex action. Colonialism, and later neocolonialism came to Africa by subterfuge, by diverting the tide of nationalism before it had gathered full momentum, by luring the unwary nationalist away from his people’s declared objectives with premature victories and by clothing the imperialist in the false garb of defeat. Africa today has recognized this subterfuge. Africa now understands the tactics of the enemy- the tactical granting of independence which has lured her in a hasty pursuit without the protection of her flanks and rear. Liberians, particularly, have learned lately that the intention of the imperialist is to cut the vanguard of our struggle from the rear, to destroy that vanguard, and finally to retake the reins of power- a project made very easy by the demise of vanguard leadership—and impose a subjugation more total and suffering more abject. The presence of Ellen Sirleaf today is a reminder of the demise of vanguard leaders.
The crises which rocked Liberia on April 12, 1980, thirty years ago this month, came as a result of efforts of progressive nationalists to rid themselves and posterity of the stranglehold of neocolonialism. For this Grand Gedeans were stigmatized and singled out for extermination. In imperialist thinking, only phony independence is acceptable for the Africans. Any attempts at true political-economic independence was a nuisance which had to be abated. The sponsorship of Liberia by imperial United States is, therefore, not surprising, nor has it been disinterested. This imperial sponsor has been concerned only with the preservation of that corrupt and rickety structure of a Liberia in a perpetual state of powerlessness to check foreign economic exploitation. It was to avoid a continuation of this economic exploitation and political powerlessness that the military stepped in.
I wish to restate that the military came to power as a corrective regime dedicated to the elimination from our national life of forms of injustice, corruption, nepotism, and abuse of power. The military was resolved to create a society in which every individual would be free to develop to the fullest his or her natural talents and enjoy the fruits of honest labor. The military envisaged a nation so reconstructed as to win respect and admiration for the black race. The PRC government intended to pursue vigorously the task of purging the nation of the ills of the last True Whig Party regime. But this is not what Liberia’s imperialist sponsor want to see. That kind of thinking had to be abated. There came the invasion! The PRC government simply changed guards but the change remained unguarded, ideologically speaking!
Today, after many years of bloody civil war, this same sponsor has tactically installed a dire heart neocolonialist to political power. Prior to her take over of political power, Ellen Sirleaf had ordered that the City of Monrovia, including all new government infrastructures and University buildings be destroyed along with the human beings protecting them! Therefore, in terms of progress, Liberia is now worst of, back to square one. This is exactly what our imperialist sponsor desires.
Our true enemy is imperialism and its insatiable greed to plunder, to loot, to rampage Africa and the African people, and when ever possible, to use African puppets or neocolonialists to achieve their selfish ends. This trend will continue until we Africans are able to build modern states based on a compelling African ideology. The need for an African ideology arises from the fact that the prolonged occupation of Africa by colonialists and the effect of a long period under tutelage left African nations with an ideological vacuum. The present-day African leader is often left with very little to choose between one ideology,or the other, each designed to serve needs other than his peoples’ declared objectives. It is this that creates in Africa a state of instability, and this instability is bound to continue until Africa generates from within an ideology of equal dynamism that can fill the vacuum and act as a bulwark against foreign imposition. The issue at hand is not the form of government that matters, but the government that can deliver to its people based on an African ideology without foreign sponsors!!
As I have said when I spoke to our brothers from Lofa County in Washington, D.C. last October, and I repeat it here in this commentary, the bloody and shameless war we fought was an imperialist war, waged by United States under President George H.W. Bush and Libya in an unholy alliance with the tacit acquiescence of the OAU and fought by proxy. Our brothers from Nimba County were merely tools deserving not of hatred and bitterness but pity.
The war was prolonged because of the determination of this imperialist power to crush a people of progress, of talent and initiative, in an area of Africa which his government would like forever to keep under its direct economic control and indirect political subservience. With this kind of protectorate it is impossible for Liberia to really progress and compete among the fast and industrial nations of our time.
Conclusion: Born into a world dominated by narrow and selfish national interests, into a world where fair humanity has been ravished of any conscience, in a world where megalomaniac materialism has usurped the position of all spiritually ennobling virtues, we Krahn people have emerged out of this war with our heads bloody but unbowed. The success of this day has come as a result of our togetherness during the war years. We must remain united as a people even in the absence of war. We must quit all this silly infighting. More importantly, no more should we fear the bullets in the barrowed arsenal of our enemies. The people of Grand Gedeh are a marked people for hatred and neglect in Liberia today because M.Sgt Doe came from Grand Gedeh County. Pure and simple. When you are hated for your strength, ability, and resilience it doesn’t make any sense to hate yourself as well. People of Grand Gedeh County, please unite. We still have some difficult days ahead, but with unity, the sky is the limit. Let us unite. Let every Krahn man be his brother’s keeper. Let us unite because there is always strength in the unity of a determined people. The current political atmosphere within the Grand Gedeh Association is a distraction. It is not helpful, at all. Let us commit ourselves to the spirit of Brotherhood and unite because we are all brothers. Brothers don’t fight brothers.
I take complete responsibility for the entire content of this commentary.
Dr. Nyonbeor Aldhuseier Boley, Sr.
Chairman, Konobo Statutory District People Association.
